PEORIA -- How is it possible that leftist radical and "Marxist feminist" Angela Davis could be both provocative and boring in the same 90 minute presentation?
Davis spoke at Bradley University to a standing-room-only crowd on March 9. Her speech was unfocused, likely not even prepared in advance. After all, she's done this gig before. Students were bored. One sitting next to me texted someone that the talk was boring. She was right.
And yet -- Davis, whose latest cause is abolition of America's prison-industrial complex, offered some provocative comments. She linked the US prison culture with slavery. She noted that Native Americans are imprisoned more per capita than anyone else, and commented: "This is colonialized land. The history of colonization shapes who we are today."
"I consider myself a prison abolitionist. I don't want to fix prisons. I want to get rid of them," she said. But she hedged when asked later what should be done about people who commit horrible crimes.
Prisons of course are an easy target -- with 2.3 million inmates, many who face ruined lives -- she called it 'civil death' -- and in some states cannot even vote once they're released. "Felon disenfranchisement is the reason we got George (W.) Bush," she said.
She linked the abuses of prisons -- rape and torture, with similar abuses in the military, and domestic violence against women. "State violence," she called it.
"Strip searches, cavity searches, sexual assault behind bars, sterilization abuse," all have taken place against the marginalized in prison. "State violence recapitulates and legitimizes private violence," she said.
"Prisons are dumping grounds for people with emotional or mental problems," she said.
"Hypersurveillance of black communities mean more are arrested and imprisoned, she said, even though statistically blacks are not more likely to commit crimes than whites.
The issue of gender confounds prisons. "Gender exists on a continuum," she said, and confounds prisons whose personnel want to classify everyone but can't deal with a transgendered person who has not had surgery.
"I'm not saying open the prison gate -- abolition is creating the kind of institutions that render the prison unnecessary: schools, housing, mental health care, drug rehabilitation. Restorative justice is the model we need.
"The "prison industrial complex is global," she said. "There's a direct connection between the rise of global capitalism and the rise of (American-style) prisons" worldwide," she said. "While the US imagines itself offering democracy to the world, it also offered prisons to the world."
Capitalism took its licks. "This is a period when capitalism inserts itself in our lives. The capitalist culture" has invaded the universities," she said.
She mentioned last week's student protests over high tuition increases,
protests that rapidly spread to 33 states. "This is a moment that may
hold the promise of a new student movement," she said.
She expressed shock that Bradley U. students pay $32,000 a year in tuition. "How do you pay for that?" she asked, recalling her student days when tuition was nominal. "Now students are saddled with these loans. You are sucked into the capitalist system. You have to think about your education as a commodity."
As for gay marriage, "as a Marxist feminist I see the institution of
marriage as economic, bourgeois and patriarchal. But if some have the
right to to marry everyone should have the right. We (should) expand
and enlarge our notion of freedom," she said.
-- Elaine Hopkins
Comment from Ed Dentino via email, 3/11/10:
Just read your column and have a couple of observations.
Based on my memory and the booklets that go by years "1960" etc... the
factor of 10 comes to mind comparing items from 1960 to 2010. Postage
.04 cents - now at .44 cents, average family car $2,000 - now at
$20,000 etc. Bradley tuition in 1962 was $1600 per year. Now at
$32,000, that is a factor of 20.
Here is tuition cost list for top 100 web site: http://www.campusgrotto.com/colleges-with-the-highest-tuition.html
Bradley falls below the bottom. Still, lots of Peoria students at that
time went to Bradley as the total cost was considered affordable.
Doubt that is true now. Even the Junior College cost, with
transportation, books, tuition is beyond affordable for many now.
I agree with Davis on the prison industry situation. While federal
and state spending build new prisons from coast to coast, what was
needed was education and job training funding.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illinois_Department_of_Corrections
List
of prisons operated by the Illinois Dept of Corrections.
Sitting and watching people at a corner like Lincoln and Western on a
typical day, it is possible Davis might still think black people are
not committing crimes at higher rates than whites. Having seen the
activity on a daily basis and having attended Carl Cannon's meetings to
help reconstitute gang members and street criminals, I'd disagree. I
do agree on why the problem exists - racism that has diminished was/is
available to the black and other ethnic community people: education,
job training, and economic resources. Some of that is self inflicted
by those groups and some is overcome very well by individuals with
determination to use what is available to better themselves and their
families.
And Davis would not convince LaVetta Ricca, Bobbete Shrode and those
living near Western and Lincoln, that the area is over policed.
People shot, drug crime, constant noise, litter, are not signs of a
location that is over patrolled.
On Capitalism: the economic and social dynamics of the U.S. has been
bad and getting worse for a very long time. Not sure if that will be
resolved. We've moved much closer to resembling a banana republic.
Another note: This March, the litter in much of the city seems worse
than I can recall for many years. Am I too senstive? I thought we
had made some progress in the past several years.
-- Ed Dentino
Well, I wasn't there. But, I do know that Angela Davis is customarily a dynamic speaker, which gives me cause to strongly protest this strange leap for an opportunity to criticize this legendary thinker and activist as soon as she has an "off day" - if it is true.
This writing is insensitive, disrespectful, manipulative, and it is a reflection of a student who needs far more homework to draw him or her out of the shadows of their (ironically) boring and lackluster writing skills.
Yet he who perceives himself less boring than his target "cast the first stone."
T.H.
Posted by: Terry | March 10, 2010 at 09:45 PM
She didnt have an off day -- she just didnt have a focused, organized
speech. A couple of people in the audience that I spoke with after the
speech ageed with me.
We all like AD, and she had some interesting things to say as my
comments show. But believe me, it was not organized.
She told the audience that she forgot to set her timer, and she also
asked someone, from the podium, what the title of her speech was.
Weird.
But dont take my word for it. Heres Peoria Journal Star critic Gary
Panettas take on the talk.
http://blogs.pjstar.com/panetta/2010/03/10/reflecting-on-angela-davis/
Posted by: Elaine Hopkins | March 11, 2010 at 09:08 AM